Participation in the Cardiff Conference and Heritage Craft Festival: May 2015

Evaluation:

As part of a staff exchange the first day of the Cardiff Open-Arch conference was attended, where numerous presentations from Open-Arch partners and other open air museum were given. A range of topics were covered including; health and safety, accessibility, and the funding and finances of open air museums. The report of this conference day is available athttp://journal.exarc.net/issue-2015-3/mm/managing-archaeological-open-ai...

This was followed by statements from each of the Open-Arch partners about what they have gained over the course of the project. These statements were resoundingly positive and all the partners seemed to have found the project not only useful, but enjoyable. After the conclusion of the presentations for the day, we were given an insightful tour of the Cardiff castle and historic quay area, followed by a dinner of local Welsh fare.

In addition to attending the conference I demonstrated fur tanning processes at the heritage festival. The interaction with both the general public and the other crafters was beneficial not only for raising awareness of skin tanning as a craft, but also to hear about and learn from other's experiences with this craft. The variety of craft skills being demonstrated was very impressive and the public seemed fascinated by the scope on offer. This event provided a great opportunity to show a large number of people that skin tanning is not nearly as unpleasant as many people expect. Many of the learning points taken away from this experience will go on to be implemented in the next Dialogue with Science Roadshow events planned for this summer.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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